Germany to create its own internet to shield citizens’ privacy

NSA revelations have destroyed the trust which the Internet had built with people since the time it had come into existence. It received mixed responses from everyone all around the world. The countries which say their citizens’ privacy is their main concern and are worried for the same, have started looking for ways which could help them preserve the privacy on the Internet.

Germany, is nowadays making some big news in this context. An initiative called “German Internet” by Deutsche Telekom, the biggest German telecom operator and Internet provider that has ties with the German government, has come into light in the country.

The state-backed provider has already won approval from the German telecom regulator to take its initiative forward, which would require agreements with rival operators which might be a troublesome task because other operators might get wary of sharing network information.

Plus this will also require several ambitious technical feats to keep German Internet traffic in Germany itself.

The company is even urging firms to cooperate to shield local Internet traffic from foreign intelligence services, says Reuters.

Today, the Internet traffic passes from network to network under free or paid-for agreements with no thought for national borders. But if more countries will wall themselves off, it could lead to a troubling “Balkanisation” of the Internet, crippling the openness and efficiency that have made the web a source of economic growth, explains Dan Kaminsky, a U.S. security researcher.

Though Deutsche Telekom hasn’t released any sort of technical details of its project, but a completely walled-off German Internet will simply mean no access to sites like Google and Facebook, as these are hosted outside the country. This kind of control over particular parts of Internet is seen in countries like Iran and China.